Tag Archives: baby

We have teamed up with another awesome Manchester based entrepreneur/stylist to help bring you the best hair styles to rock with your products.

I always go on about protective styles, I knowwww.

So what better way to help you than to show you guys some bomb hairdressers!!

Introducing…

TheHairSanctuary

By Naomi Brooks.

Naomi is an award-winning hairstylist, who is well known in Manchester for her weave & colour expertise. Starting as a self-taught hairdresser, (you know, these are the best!!) she has climbed the hair dressing ladder and owned her own hair salon whilst studying at the same time. With more than a decade in the industry, you can rest assured that you are in safe hands.

Since launching MourMourCreme last year our brand has been a success with everyone, especially hair dressers.

Following this, we have decided to collaborate with another Manchester business…

Introducing….

QueenHair X MMC

Queens hair is owned by Chante a beautiful young black woman who is pushing her mobile hairdressing to the limits following the birth of her daughter. Like myself, Chante is using her princess as her motivation.

She specialises in protective styles & weaves. Her clients start from all ages and her styles are desirable.

When your child is ready to be potty trained you will know. He/she will show unavoidable signs that they no longer want to wear a nappy. This could be things like taking their nappy off all the time or trying to sit on the toilet after you do. Your child, so you’ll know the signs… right? Okay.

My daughter, Amour took notice of the toilet, often asking me to flush the toilet or to wash her hands after we changed her nappy she would also take her nappy off a lot during the day, so that’s how I knew she was ready.

Okay, you’ve seen the signs… now what?

It’s time to go shoppinggggg…

Here is a list of things you may need:

21 X Knickers / Pants

A clock

A potty or toilet seat

Stool

Disinfectant & Febreze

Wipes

& A whole load of patience

Before

When buying the underwear, I took Amour and let her choose which packets she wanted, because she’s so small for her age it was difficult finding ones that fitted her waist. Although, Amour is 2, when she started potty training she was still in 12-18months clothes.

Asda, Sainsburys, Pep&Co, Primark were the only places that had underwear in her size.

Whilst waiting for her nappies to run out, I would allow Amour in the bathroom with me, this was such an excitement for her as she would pull her stool and stand right in front of me everyyyy. Single. Morning. I also began telling her what she had left in her nappy when changing her it. I read this somewhere earlier this year, so I’m not sure how useful this was, however I still done it.

“Go Mour Mour, Go Mour Mour, Go”

Day 1 – 3

When Amour woke up, I took her nappy off and told her to put it in the nappy bin and we never looked back.

Amour originally, didn’t like the potty so she had a toilet seat (Aldi £4.50 & stool £4.50). I included Amour in everything to try and encourage her to be as excited as me, so together we placed a toilet seat and stool in both of our bathrooms and made a song out of it.

When sitting Amour on the toilet and telling her to wee she would look at me crazy, so I put on YouTube videos about going to the toilet to try and get her to understand

After around 15 minutes she used the toilet for the first time *yayyyyy*

I would make a HUGE deal out of using the toilet. As Amour is very extravagant (at home) every gasp, hi5 or clap gets her excited. So that’s exactly what I would play on. Doing this encouraged her to use the toilet, so much so, she spent the next two days going to the toilet by herself, even when she didn’t need it.

The first night was fine, when she woke up, I immediately took her to the toilet and she had a dry bed which was great, however, the second night, she wet her bed. Because of this I made it a POA in our house not to give Amour drinks after 6pm, 2 hours before her bed time. This was to prevent her having accidents in the bed.

“Bye bye wee wee”

DAY 4-7

Personally, this is where toilet training got hard. Amour had become bored of using the toilet and started having a million accidents. HOW??? I was so confused as to, how or why she was going so frequently. Sooo confused.

I am normally very observant with everything, maybe sometimes too much. I knew when it was Amours toilet time; she poops around 1 hour after eating and urinates 20-40 minutes after each drink so to me, I was outraged.

Dealing with accidents was such a dramatic time for me. Amour had the habit of saying ‘I need the toilet’ AFTER she had peed on my floor. Hiding my frustration, I would say “Oopsy Daisy” and then sit her on the toilet whilst I cleaned my floor with disinfectant and Febreeze. During her first accidents, I would throw her underwear away because if I am honest I was just really annoyed. She had 3 days with only one accident, at night, then suddenly, she is urinating around my house.

I first hit the roof, when I could smell poo after hanging out our painting to dry. So, I am walking around my house with Amour trying to find the poo, she’s giving my so many false directions, for me to then realise she had pooped herself. Yes, I know. I should have checked first, but I didn’t.

Now, this is where I hit my first major parent battle. How the hell, do you get the poo out of her underwear without putting it on her and putting it on the floor.

I try to deal with every issue in my life by turning it into a mathematical problem, I don’t know how or why but I do, I was completely stuck I didn’t know which angle to take… Instead, I called for her dad and after a flip of a coin, he dealt with it.

So, it was time for a different approach, after each drink we would wait 15 minutes and then sit her on the toilet and read books until she was ready, now sometimes she would say she didn’t need the toilet and after 5 minutes of nothing, we would believe her.

Even if she didn’t have a drink we would take her toilet every 15-45 minutes, depending on what we were doing. After every successful toilet trip, we would say “Bye bye wee wee” or “Bye bye poo poo” wash our hands together and then hi 5.

This worked, so we stuck with this.

To summarise; I found out Amours toilet routine and worked with it, using positive reinforcement to make toilet time a fun and rewarding place.

We took her toilet every 30minutes; Said goodbye to the toilet; Praised her for using the toilet and read to her whilst on the toilet. By day 8, we had got this down to the ‘T’ so with more practice she was officially potty trained.

Being potty trained to me doesn’t mean no accidents, it just means they are now actual accidents. The only time she has an incident is when she’s on her way to the toilet or if she’s too busy enjoying herself.

When Amour was at nursery she was generally very good having only 1 or 2 accidents a week, but this is because I pressured her nursery to keep up with my routine.

Oh yeah, If your child attends nursery USE NURSERY!!!!! I repeat USE THE NURSERY. Get your child familiar with potty training then send them into nursery as usual without a nappy and make sure they do not use them during the day.

When potty training, remember, to be consistent and to stick with this routing until it sticks with them and not with you, trust me. I went to Paris for 4 days, came back and had to do her potty training all over again because my brother put Amour back in nappies.

Please note all children are different and potty training can depend on your child’s habits and not their ability to use the potty/toilet.

I am sure a lot of small business owners can relate, but guys, exposure does not pay my bills.

Exposure for a brand is very important and yes, it shouldn’t always be free. However, let’s be realistic, me giving you hundreds of pounds worth of stock in exchange for people getting freebies at your event at my expense is not a fair deal.

When I first launched Mourmourcreme, I would often give out freebies to people I thought supported me as a good will gesture.

As a supporter of black owned businesses, you should not ask for “sponsorship” for events you are making a profit on, especially from a small business. Of course, you can get sponsorship for your events but don’t be selfish and try to exploit smaller businesses. Make it a fair trade!

Moving forward, I no longer provide “sponsorship” for events that make a profit. Please do not ask, as refusal often offends.

I will always try to help charity when possible and I am willing to do some valuable collaborations, just no sponsorship's.

As a small business, we are all trying to increase our profits and are not in such positions to financially support others personal income with nothing real return.

Like most black people, especially black women and femmes, I have plenty of horror stories about the abuse and insults that led me to hate my hair. I could tell you all about how I was called Pube-Head, Bush Girl, Coco the Clown, and told to ‘bark like a dog’ because my ‘new name’ was Poodle. I could tell you about coming home to find pencil sharpenings, bread crumbs and wads of paper in my coils, or even about the time when I had a braid cut off—BUT that’s all in the past now! And I’m not bitter. Honest. 🙂

If you’d like to know the series of events that ultimately led to my going natural, check out my journey here: http://naturallytiss.com/my-natural-hair-journey/

I have a multi-textured fro: a lot of it is 3c; a fair amount is 4a; and there are maybe five individual 3a strands dotted around that really cramp my style—but you work with what you got! My point is that I don’t suffer the texturism that people with 4b and 4c hair are exposed to.

However, I still find it useful to be what I call ‘afro posi’. I actually made it a hashtag, because, well, what can I say? I’m a twenty-year-old walking stereotype who uses social media too much. I apply #AfroPosi to the hair experiences of any person of Afro-origin—but for me personally, it’s a phrase I use to remind myself that yes, I should wear my hair out to that job interview, and no, it doesn’t look nappy or gross without gel, and a thousand other things to blank out the voice in my head that tells me ‘Straight hair is the prettiest’. Because guess what? It isn’t. My hair is beautiful too.

My hair contributes to my beauty in countless ways, from the mundane to the spectacular. When I wake up in the morning, I’m still tired (spoonie problems) and I look it. I more often than not have pillow creases on my face and sleep in my eyes. My breath smells, frankly, like grim death. But my hair? My hair is no normal bedhead.

Well, it is—but we’ll gloss over that, because you can’t see it.

No, when I wake up, I do so with a golden, rose-printed silk scarf wrapped about my head like a vintage-glam turban.

When I wake up, I wake up like Etta James, hoe.

I glide (or stumble) to the bathroom like Holly Golightly without the hangover.

I wake up looking F A B U L O U S, because that is what the ‘fro requires. *nail painting emoji*

I know that a lot of people dislike the perceived extra work of Afro hair; actually, I used to be one of those people. But since going natural, I’ve realised that, despite my disabilities often incapacitating me, there’s always some sort of hair shortcut I can take. Even when the rest of me is a state, I can keep my hair relatively healthy, and even pretty. In fact, one of my favourite things about being black is the fact that I can put my hair in a protective style for anywhere from a week to two months and just… leave it the hell alone. And be flawless—and I mean flawless, erryting chris—throughout. You know what that is? That’s a blessing, my friends.

Even better, though, is when I have the energy to truly pamper my hair. I’m the kind of girl who looks pretty much the same, whether I’ve been camping in the wilderness (not that I’d do such a thing, but in theory) or I’m about to hit the red carpet (again, theory here—I’m stretching your imaginative skills. Thank me later). So the thing that makes me feel beautiful isn’t always my reflection, but rather the action of beautifying. The more pampering I do, the more stunning I feel. Self-care is warfare, my friends!

So when I’m cotched in the bathroom with armfuls of products from my mysterious Drawer of Afro Wonders, I feel like a fairy casting a spell. I read labels with glee, mix custards and creams and conditioners like an artist creating paint shades. Take this shampoo, cut it with this mour mint-infused Shea butter, et voila—a clean, refreshed scalp without dryness or frizz! This conditioner to detangle, then this for moisture with this on top, and oh, what next? I. Go. WILDDDDD.

Yeah, I know. My life is exciting, right?

But when I’m done, and my concoctions are back in their drawer, and my hair is finally dry… damn. I feel so, so beautiful. And I smell like a mango. Yum.

I live in a predominantly white area, so I don’t often get compliments when I’m out and about—mostly just confused or mildly alarmed looks. At one point, that might have bothered me, but now, I really don’t care. In fact, being stared at makes me smile. Knowing that my hair (though it’s still relatively short) is taking up space, makes me smile. I always stood out where I live, because I am a 5’11 black girl with a limp, but now I stand out on purpose, and I like it. I don’t avoid being seen; I embrace it. When my hair is tucked away into an up-do, or beneath a wig for the winter, I feel like I’m a little bit less there—and when it’s out and unavoidable, I feel like I’ve been crowned. I know, I know. Hotep o’clock. Shut up, I can be corny if I want to.

The point is, my hair finally feels like me. After years of beating it into submission, hating it, and eventually getting rid of huge chunks of it, I finally figured out what it was that I wanted from my hair. All it took was forgetting what I’d been told to want, and remembering what actually makes me feel beautiful.

I was taught to crave length, and hate my shrinkage—but now, I stretch out a cute little coil, then watch it spring right back with pride.

I was taught to want smooth, sleek locks—but now, I style my hair two days before a party, to make sure it’s big and frizzy, the way I like it.

I was taught that the only true beauty was the kind we see on TV. I was taught wrong. And once I forgot all that, I was able to decide for myself.

Out of all the ways in which my natural hair contributes to my beauty, there’s one that’s less obvious than my hair’s health, or my confidence, or my love of pampering. It’s the fact that every time I see it, I remember how my idea of what is beautiful did a complete 180, purely because I made the decision to change my mind and choose for myself. And if I can just decide, out of nowhere, that my hair is beautiful, then what’s to stop me deciding that the rest of me is beautiful? That all the other things I’ve been told to hate—my nose, my height, my shoulders, my scars, my weakness—are all beautiful?

As it happens, there’s nothing to stop me doing that. In fact, I’ve already done it. Just like that. Over just one year, I decided that everything about me was beautiful—all, oddly enough, as a result of loving my hair.

Literally, anything that comes to my mind will be posted here. The purpose of this space is to remind my customers, I am human.

I am a mother, a girlfriend, a daughter, a best friend, an employee and a potential business owner.

I am not your average “business owner”, not yet anyway, because I don’t see MourMourCreme as a business if I am honest, I think of it as a service. Maybe, because I realllly enjoy doing it, I like interacting with people, giving them advice, offering support, making the crèmes, doing paper work blah blah blah. I love it!

So yeah, this is me, I am 21 by the way so I am still a baby. I am still learning!! Don’t judge me by who I was 5 minutes ago, I am not the same person. Literally….

If you want to be my friend feel free to follow me on social media @callmekimoni I accept new friends allll the time, you see when you become a mum, you tend to lose friends, I don’t know why (okay, I do but that’s for a different blog) luckily, I still have my mains though THE ‘BadGyalWave’ ha, you’ll probably find out about them in a few more blogs.

I am not even sure how blogs work I have only read a few, normally I find them quite boring, so we will see how this pans out.